On Groundhog Day at the Lutz Children's Museum in Manchester on Thursday morning, Chuckles, Connecticut's official state groundhog, did not see her shadow which means she predicts an early spring this year. Chuckles is five-years-old and resides at the museum.

On Groundhog Day at the Lutz Children's Museum in Manchester on Thursday morning, Chuckles, Connecticut's official state groundhog, did not see her shadow which means she predicts an early spring this year. Chuckles is five-years-old and resides at the museum.

Connecticut Chuckles VIII, the prognosticating rodent who delighted winter-weary crowds in the state for the past three years, has died. She was five.

"We lost a good friend," Mayor Jay Moran, who translated Chuckles's Groundhog Day predictions each year, said Thursday.

Chuckles was the latest in a long line of barometrical mystics bred in the rocky soil of the Nutmeg State. The Lutz Children's Museum, where she made her home, is seeking a replacement, Director Bob Eckert said.

The beloved whistlepig suffered from chronic health problems, including respiratory infections and teeth that grew in the wrong direction, Eckert said. She had been at Bolton Veterinary Hospital for the past week, he said.

Found orphaned in a Vernon parking lot, Chuckles was the eighth of the museum's Groundhog Day stars. Moran and she had a close relationship, as his mayoralty and groundhog translating abilities coincided with Chuckles' ascension as a weather diviner.

The mayor has staunchly defended the state's clairvoyant woodchuck. In 2015, he rejected the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club's contention that its star, Phil, was the only genuine oracle of his kind in the nation. Phil may enyoy the national spotlight at Gobbler's Knob in Pennsylvania, but around here, Moran declared, "Chuckles is the man! They can think all they want."

Chuckles VIII was treated like a queen, with a daily diet of fruits and vegetables brought in fresh from Highland Park Market, Eckert said. The seven-pound burrowing mammal [Marmota monax] was the museum's first groundhog who loved to climb, and Eckert said her enclosure recently had been expanded and enhanced with more climbing features.

Chuckles also could do tricks such as wave, spin, lay down and "scratch," museum staff said. Her favorite treat was almonds, bananas, peanuts and oranges. She will be missed, Eckert and Moran said, by all her adoring fans.